Good morning bloggers!
 Well I have emerged from my post surgery fog..and I am amazed that it has taken me a week. Yesterday was the first day that I was really up for any length of time. We had a lovely afternoon visit with my brother in law Robin Raj..who was in San Diego for a conference.
It has really been an up and down week. More pain and less mobility than I was expecting but fortunately both have been improving.Yesterday I was able to walk around the house up the driveway across the casita deck thru my art studio and down to the back yard. I did that three times so that is definite progress.
We did have one setback this week..and that was the pathology report..which showed that the lymph nodes that they removed tested positive and that the tumor had not shrunk as much as they thought..The last report we had said that  it had shrunk 50 to 70 % and in reality it had only shrunk 30 to 40 %. I am reminded of my mothers high school motto which was "setbacks pave the way for comebacks" and was repeated to me many hundreds of times growing up.That saying has served me well over the years, and it serves me well today. This news came from a nurse..and we have not talked to the doctor yet. We have an appointment with the oncologist on Monday so will have more information then.We saw the plastic surgeon this week and she said that everything "looked good" ( I guess a plastic surgeon would never want to look at her work and say "well THAT looks really bad!")
Thank you all so much for the phone calls, help, flowers, cards, care packages, lovely handmade cards from grandkids Connor and Dylan and Cassidy and Iris ..and your overall continuing support.It means so much to us. My niece Karen also drove down from Bakersfield and sat with Tom and Dara and said prayers during my surgery I am sure helped me get thru the day and Tom too!Thanks also to Judy and Jean and David and Maureen for giving Tom a break from his rather extensive nursing duties which he never complains about. Just going to the garage  to work on his projects or going to the boat  to work gives him a well deserved break.